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Gregory House
This article is about '''the character'. For info about the show, see House (TV series).'' Gregory House, M.D., (almost universally referred to as House and rarely as Greg or Dr. House) is the main character and protagonist of the House series. He is portrayed by the actor Hugh Laurie. Background House was born on June 11, 1959, to John House, a Marine pilot, and Blythe House, a housewife. As his father served on active duty through most of House's childhood and adolescence, House has lived in a variety of countries where his father was stationed, several of which, such as Egypt and Japan, have been identified in the series. House was obviously a bright child, a mixed blessing as his demanding father and loving mother obviously had high hopes for him. He cultivated a variety of interests, such as chemistry and playing the piano, which have served him well into adulthood. However, it appears that his isolation from people his age and his poor relationship with his parents led House to become something of a loner. It is intimated that he frequently rebelled against his father and was punished as a result, although it is not clear whether this was physical abuse or merely emotional isolation. It was during his visit to a Japanese hospital that House met up with a disheveled man who appeared to be a janitor who was, nevertheless, the person with the most medical knowledge in the hospital. He later discovered the man was a buraku, a member of an "untouchable" caste who did not even try to fit in with the rest of the doctors. The incident convinced the young House to become a doctor as, despite their distaste for him, all the personnel in the hospital listened to the buraku when they needed to. This would tend to indicate that the young House, although knowledgeable in his youth, was often ignored by those in authority who thought they knew better. In school, House was a good student, and obtained admission to Johns Hopkins Medical School. However, he was caught cheating by Philip Weber, the man whom he later treated as his arch-nemesis, and was expelled. Despite his academic misconduct, House was accepted at the Medical School of the University of Michigan, where he became a legend and first came to the attention of a young undergraduate student, Lisa Cuddy. During the season 4 episdoe Games, House mentions that he got a perfect score on his MCAT examinations. House is currently the head of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's Department of Diagnostic Medicine. His medical career before he joined Princeton-Plainsboro is shrouded, but it appears that although his skills as a diagnostician were unparalleled, his disregard for the finer points of medical ethics, his inability to work well with other people (both subordinates and supervisors), and what appears to be a disregard for routine work made him almost unemployable. Disability Several years before the start of the series, House suffered an infarction in his leg. Unfortunately, the only symptom was leg pain, and by the time House himself realized that he was suffering from muscle death, the leg was in such a bad state that amputation was the recommended course of action. However, House rejected the suggestion and instead underwent a procedure to bypass circulation around the dead muscle. The result was intense pain during the healing process, which nearly resulted in cardiac arrest until House was put into an induced coma. However, while House was comatose, his girlfriend and medical proxy Stacy Warner decided to go with Dr. Cuddy's suggestion to have the dead muscle surgically removed. Although this most likely saved House's life, it left him with permanent intense pain in his right leg. As a result of the pain, House became addicted to the narcotic pain killer Vicodin. Although House realizes he is addicted, he believes the Vicodin is the only thing that will overcome the pain and allow him to function. However, his dependence on the drug has gotten him into trouble on several ocassions, and his colleagues are unsure whether House's anti-social personality traits are the result of his addiction. House's condition is most likely made worse by the fact that prior to the infarction, he was quite an active athlete, engaging in paintball (where he met Stacy), golf, running and possibly lacrosse. Psychology While his medical prowess is world-renowed, House can be characterized as a flawed hero. While he has significant prowess in medical diagnosis, his methods to come about such diagnosises are often ethically incorrect (i.e., violating laws, trespassing into patient's homes, physical assaults, etc.) House can be described as poorly socialized. He does not suffer fools gladly, and is not hesitant to challenge anyone he believes is misinformed or unintelligent. This trait tends to infuriate everyone, including patients, their families, his staff, his friends, and his boss, Dr. Cuddy. The fact that House is rarely wrong about anything he challenges others about is perhaps his only saving grace in this respect. He appears to place much of his self-worth in his ability to be right, as he believes it to be the thing that will make others tolerate all of his other shortcomings (as he learned from his experience with the buraku janitor). House has no tolerance for what he believes is straight-forward, routine, or boring. He rarely properly completes a patient's chart, does everything he can to avoid clinic duty with its myriad of simple diagnoses and routine illnesses, and often entertains and distracts himself mentally with his PlayStation Portable, Nintendo Ds or television shows, or in physical ways by playing with his cane, the large ball he keeps on his desk, and other assorted toys; he rarely sits still unless he is thinking deeply about a medical problem. House also has an almost pathological need to avoid meeting his own patients. Even on the most complicated cases, he tends to stay in his office, working on the ever-present whiteboard, while directing his staff to perform tests, talk to the patients and their families about their treatments, and deal with emergency situations. Part of this is no doubt due to his general misanthropy, but it often goes deeper than that. This tendency has cost House some valuable diagnostic clues. He often comes up with the correct answer when meeting the patient for the first time and noticing some minor trait that leads to a definitive diagnosis. House's arrogance about his own talents often leads him to only give lip service to informed consent. When a patient, or their family, disagrees with the proper course of treatment, House is not above browbeating, trickery or even ignoring legal procedure outright in order to proceed in the way he sees best. Regrettably, House is wrong often enough to put his patient's life and health at risk based on incomplete information. Experiments House's willingness to take risks and experiment with his patients extends to his own health. Beyond his use of Vicodin, he has frequently used himself as a guinea pig for drugs and medical tests. Some of these tests are aimed at curing his leg pain, while others are to help his patients or satisfy his own curiosity. This disregard for his own well-being horrifies Wilson and Cuddy, who see it as an expression of his self-destructive impulses. House's self-experiments include: *Injecting himself with nitroglycerin to cause a migraine headache, in order to prove a rival's migraine cure was flawed. He later used LSD to offset the migraine and antidepressants to nullify the LSD's more potent effects (Distractions). *Using ketamine to reboot his nerve connections, an idea that came to him in a hallucination after he was shot (No Reason). *Grafting the pain-free spinal nerves of a CIPA patient onto his leg, which was halted after Wilson pointed out he was risking paralysis in one of his patients (Insensitive). *Faking brain cancer to enter a clinical trial where a drug-dispensing chip would be installed into the pleasure center of his brain. This effort was derailed when his team uncovered his deception (Half-Wit). *Sticking a knife into an electrical socket to see what would happen if he was temporarily dead. What, if anything, he saw was never disclosed (97 Seconds). *Injecting himself with blood from a sick patient to test if a blood transfusion caused his symptoms (You Don't Want To Know). *Undergoing hypnosis and overdosing on the Alzheimer's medication physostigmine to unlock memories lost after a bus crash. The latter of the two put House into cardiac arrest (House's Head). *Deep brain stimulation with an electrical prod to complete the missing memories. The electrical current caused a seizure, which combined with House's fractured skull to create a bleed in his brain and send him into a coma. He awoke from the coma at the end of the episode, but any damage has yet to be revealed (Wilson's Heart). Relationships Although House has had a number of co-workers, employers, lovers, and acquaintances during his life, it appears that he has only had four real relationships during his life. This is primarily because House's personality is most likely a deliberate attempt to alienate those who want to get to know him better. The four people who have been able to overcome his defensiveness have found a person worth salvaging, or even cherishing. * James Wilson - To say that Wilson is House's best friend is terribly inaccurate (though both Wilson and House himself has stated the fact on very rare occasions): Wilson is House's only friend, and may be the only friend House has ever had. Although, like just about everyone else, Wilson admires House for his considerable medical skills, and probably cares more for House as a human being. However, even Wilson agrees that this has led to a co-dependent relationship, with Wilson acting as an enabler. For example, Wilson kept House well supplied with Vicodin and often makes excuses for his behavior to get House out of trouble. For those who know both of them, they realize that Wilson will drop everything when House needs him. When Stacy eventually left House, it was Wilson who kept him going. As a result, Wilson is very protective of House. However, Wilson is no pushover; he often challenges House over his behavior and is not above tricking him to show House that although he might be right about almost everything, that skill doesn't apply to his own behavior. * Stacy Warner - House's only real romantic relationship with a woman, and probably the only person House has ever loved. Although their relationship broke up over House's anger about his disability, it's clear that they are physically, emotionally, and intellectually attracted to each other. Unlike most people, Stacy can see right through House's defensiveness and can often see through his attempts to manipulate her. Most of House's fear of relationships can probably be tracked back to the pain he felt when Stacy walked out of his life. * John House - House's father was a strict disciplinarian, but although his punishments were severe, they were never arbitrary or fueled by anger. As a Marine, John probably felt his son would respond well to the same sort of discipline that made him the man he did. Instead, House is almost the antithesis of his father. Where John is compulsively neat, Gregory dresses like a slob. The father is punctual while the son is constantly late. Where John is straight-forward, his son is manipulative. However, although House clearly wants nothing more to do with his father, it is just as clear that his father wants to have a relationship with his son and share the important things in his life. * Blythe House - From the way House treats women, one might expect that his relationship with his mother was troubled. However, House's mother loves him unconditionally, and the reverse is true as well. It was probably this unconditional love that led House to pursue his dreams. However, House realizes that he is a disappointment to his mother because the thing that his mother wants the most is for him to be happy, and he seems incapable of being anything other than miserable. His wish to avoid his father has the unfortunate fallout of taking him away from his mother as well. More insights into House's view of relationships were obtained in the episode Mirror Mirror. When House was with the mirror, patient Number 13 was in the room with them. The patient chose to mirror House. At first, the patient started to make comments about how good-looking Number 13 was, then he started to express regret about how it was impossible for him to do anything about it. It appears from this that House would like to have relationships with some of the women he works with, like Cuddy and Allison Cameron, but knows that pursuing such a relationship would be inappropriate. Talents House is a first-rate doctor, and qualified in three different medical specialities: diagnostic medicine(Pathology), nephrology (diseases of the kidney), and infectious diseases (Infectology). However, in addition to his medical acumen, House has a variety of other interests and abilities. He is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, and has an excellent knowledge of chemistry. Because he lived in several countries growing up, House has a command of several languages and has demonstrated knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, and Mandarin. Sherlock Holmes references :Main page: Sherlock Holmes connections *House lives in apartment 221B. This is similar to 221B Baker Street as seen in Holmes. *House's friend is Doctor James Wilson; Holmes' is Doctor John Watson. *"House" is a synonym of "Home", which is a homonym of "Holmes." *Both have drug issues - House with Vicodin, Holmes with cocaine. *House calls all his associates by their last names, the same with Holmes calling John by his last name. *Can deduce and diagnose a great deal just from looking at a person, as Holmes can deduce a great deal just looking at a person also. Related links *Gregory House on Wikipedia Category:Characters Category:Doctors